Assassin's Creed: Ex Cineribus
by JediKnightMarina55
Summary: (This is the rewritten version of AC: The Watchmen, Inheritance) Some say Desmond Miles is dead. Nothing is true. That a spirit broke free the first day of winter. Everything is permitted. There's still fire under the ashes. Desmond has survived. The Brotherhood is ready for another adventure to face Juno once and for all. It all starts from a diary... and a name, Flavia Auditore.
1. Prologue

_**This was supposed to be uploaded on September 1**__**st**__**, but I had a few issues around and didn't really want to make the AN.**_

_**Anyway, yeah, this is the rewriting of AC: the Watchmen, Inheritance. I'm fixing some plot holes and I'm definitely adapting the story to the AC3 canon – and also the real life canon, as recently there have been new discoveries about our dear friend Vanni. And I'm getting a beta! (Thanks, Suomenlinna)**_

_**Oh, and this is also Initiates-friendly (which means I got some of the exact dates, for example the fact the story starts in November 1524 and everything), I'm giving more weight to certain characters and…**_

_**I take this chance to say thanks to MirrorAndImage for putting "my" Filippo Falcone in their Brotherhood novelization! It really meant so much to me!**_

* * *

_To who gave me the idea and supported me_

_To who pushed me forward and walks on next to me_

_To who wanted to follow me in this adventure_

_THANK YOU._

* * *

_While we live according to race, colour or creed__  
__While we rule by blind madness and pure greed__  
__Our lives dictated by tradition, superstition, false religion__  
__Through the eons, and on and on__  
__Oh yes we'll keep on tryin'__  
__We'll tread that fine line__  
__Oh we'll keep on tryin'__  
__Till the end of time_

_(Queen, Innuendo)_

_Dec 30, 2012, somewhere in the United States_

Christmas had come and gone, even if the Assassins didn't really celebrate.

New Year was drawing near, and after his father's kidnapping, after Juno's deception, Desmond Miles had resolved he should be happy to have another New Year's Day to celebrate.

They had gone again into hiding, in one of the many Assassin hideouts in the United States, and Shaun had joined them after Christmas, along with two more Assassins Desmond had not met, but he had been told by his father their names were Matt and Ayden.

Their recent victory over the Templars had been a relief, but there was still a lot to be done to eradicate them once and for all, and Juno's threat was not something to be underestimated.

Desmond only hoped no one would lead him into battle again, not in the immediate future. After all, barely escaping from kicking the bucket, very barely, really, was not a thing one did every day. Luckily, even though he realized there was a lot of people in the building, no one had asked him to leave the room, and only that day his father had allowed him to leave the bed, and he had received no visits apart from him, and now, Shaun.

"What took you so long?" Desmond asked Shaun as he entered the room he was in. "I thought you wouldn't have even left. Didn't you cut all ties with your family?"

"A friend in London found something," Shaun explained shrugging. "I thought you might find it interesting. Buried deep under St. Peter ad Vincula, along with something – or better, _someone_ else. I couldn't believe my eyes when I was given it."

"What?" Desmond asked, standing from the chair he had been sitting in. He felt somewhat dizzy, but if he kept sitting there like in a sickbed, he would go crazy.

"_This,_" Shaun answered, taking out a makeshift book with a theatrical gesture.

"Ha, ha, very funny. That thing didn't come out of a vault, it came out of a laser printer."

"Did you really think I'd make you read the original? Then again, it was written in Italian, you wouldn't have understood a thing."

"That's what you think… anyway, what else did you find?"

"You read it, you'll find out," Shaun told him tossing the book in his hands. "Just be happy you won't have to use the Animus for your great-great-great-whatever-grandma, because _she _wrote _that._"

"Great-great-whatever-grandma?" Desmond asked, puzzled. "Who are you talking about?"

"Listen, Ezio didn't disappear after finding Altair in Masyaf, did he? Especially because he still needed to sire."

"What does Ezio matter? I'm _done_ with him. Bye. Bye. _Addio._"

"Strange, I thought you and he were getting along."

"Shut the fuck up."

"Listen, do you want to know why you're still here bugging me? Juno may have made her move. But someone had foreseen that. Someone countered her – and did it through _them_." Shaun said turning some pages. The portrait of two teenagers was one of the first pages. In the bottom right corner, a badly-scribbled signature, on which the letters A and F could be recognized, and a date, May 2, 1532.

Both the kids were dressed as assassins, though their hoods had been pulled back. One of them was visibly a girl, but Desmond could not tell which one was older as they were about the same height. The boy wore a black armor, perhaps a bit too large for him, while the girl was dressed in the far more common white and red (or at least, if the artist had left it blank, Desmond supposed it was so).

"The girl here is the author of all the written stuff," Shaun explained. "Maybe not a Nobel Prize for Literature, but hey, it's _your family_ we're talking about."

"Yeah, but what else did you find in the vault? And who's A. F.?"

"_Read,_" Shaun said, exiting the room.

Desmond threw himself on the chair again and laid the book on his lap. The two kids grinned at him from the photocopy, their smiles made immortal by the unknown A. F.'s pencil.

He turned another page.

The following one was totally blank, except for a scribbled line. Maybe Shaun had wanted to make a copy of the original dedication, because it was definitely someone's handwriting, and definitely Italian.

_A chiunque creda che questo mondo possa essere salvato._

He turned another page. This time, the line had been typed in English.

* * *

_To whoever believes this world can be saved._

_When I was a little girl, my parents kept telling me we live for other people._

_We are born because a man and a woman decide they want us, we make them smile with our first laugh, our first word, our first steps._

_We are taught how to live, so we'll be able to do something in our lives. We play with other kids, and we entertain them just like they do with us. We help our parents more and more as we become adults and they grow old._

_And when we're grown up, we start working. Farmers grow food, blacksmiths make tools, masons build houses. It's a huge chain, if you notice it._

_Blacksmiths make sure that masons and farmers can do their job, masons provide a roof under which farmers and blacksmiths can live, farmers produce food so everyone can live._

_And I even simplified this! Reality is far more tangled!_

_Then, one day, a man meets a woman. They just feel good staying with each other, so they decide to be together forever. And this, reader, is called love._

_At a point, they love each other so much they decide to make another life. They raise a child together, make__them__stand and make__them__speak._

_They stand along with their child, teaching__them__what's right and what's wrong. They keep helping__them__in any way they can, raising their grandchildren if they still can._

_If only this always happened._

_There are people, in this huge, tangled chain, who believe their life is nothing but theirs. They take, though they won't give. They're parasites._

_Parasites lead to unrest. Unrest leads to war._

_As long as there's war, there will be people who want peace._

_There are people who want to force peace, and they're as__bad__as parasites._

_And there are people who want to teach peace. People who fight for it. Who truly want it to last._

_I'm one of them, like my brother, my father and my grandfather._

_My name is Flavia Auditore, and I'm an Assassin._


	2. A bolt from the blue

_**If you've already read the early draft of this story you already know how the story is going to begin, though, there'll be some dates edited and some added in this chapter. And there will be major edits in some of the next chapters, giving earlier introductions to characters that revealed themselves to occupy an important space in the story (like Cosimo or Cecchino) or plot improvements.**_

_**There's also a friend of mine, whom I'll nickname Desmond... cause he goes by as Desmond in the internet... (his name does actually start with a D) and he's helping me with "character stats" to better define every character's fighting style. An example: Ben is a freaking cheat. He'd toss marbles under a pursuer's feet... or horse... to make him slip and fall down. Vanni, on the other hand, has a sense of fair play in close fight, but in a battle, he has tactics to avoid direct confrontation and... well, you'll get to know, if you don't.**_

_**The quote is taken from the song "The Thin Ice", by Pink Floyd.**_

**SEQUENCE 1**

**ANOTHER STORY**

* * *

_Momma loves her baby_

_And Daddy loves you too_

_And the sea may look warm to you baby_

_And the sky may look blue […]_

_If you should go skating_

_On the thin ice of modern life_

_Dragging behind you the silent reproach_

_Of a million tear stained eyes_

_Don't be surprised when a crack in the ice_

_Appears under your feet_

_(Pink Floyd, The Thin Ice)_

* * *

_People say every family has its secrets, and if you want to know them, you have to be a part of it._

_When my father found out the secrets of his own, it was on his own skin. He watched my grandfather and my uncles__die__without knowing why, and when he started fighting for the cause my brother and I are supporting now, he knew almost nothing about it._

_I can consider myself lucky I've heard the truth from his voice. I cannot deny we have had doubts… and no one would have wanted this kind of life for us._

_But it also has been our own choice, mine and my brother Marcello's, and we never really__regretted__it. Despite everything that happened, we met the best people we could ever meet, the proverbial true friends who walk in when all the world walks out._

_In a way, the world had already walked out on us. Marcello had been expelled from a parish school for so-called bad behavior, we could count our friends on our fingers, and we were somewhat considered the barmy kids in town._

_We only realized after long that it was so because we had been taught to think for ourselves. Our father didn't want us to fight, but… with the education we got, it was literally obvious that one day we be wielding weapons in some way. We felt it, even if nothing could really prepare us for what happened._

_About a month after Marcello's tenth birthday, the eagles came home to roost, in the person of a traveler, a girl come from a country far away._

_Before we could understand__anything, we were sent__to__a nearby town, to the house of two family friends whom we called Zio Niccolò and Zia Marietta – the parents of most of our childhood friends. When we came home, the truth could no longer stay hidden._

* * *

Chapter 1

A bolt from the blue

_November 26, 1524, Fiesole_

Marcello Auditore was no stupid.

He had turned ten a month ago, he could read and write, unlike most of the countryside kids in the small town he lived in with his family, he could climb walls, and in more than a patronal festival he had outrun all the boys of his age.

He and Flavia spent most of their time on their own; something seemed to set them apart from the other children in town, preventing them from making friends easily. One of them, Edoardo Bove, had gathered a small gang against the siblings whose main purpose and favourite pastime seemed to be bullying "stupid Marcello" and his sister.

Also, the fact Edoardo's mother always said that "red hair was devil's hair" didn't help at all. Especially because Marcello's hair _was_ red.

Marcello had tried anything to avoid being mocked. He had covered his hair in dirt – just to be scolded by Mamma and dumped into a tub full of water and soap. He had found an old hat which had belonged to Papà, only to be mocked even more because of it.

Since those times, he had always preferred staying with Flavia than staying with the boys. Flavia might be a girl, but she wasn't like the other girls. She preferred playing at ball or hide-and-seek to dolls, and she didn't loathe hugging him even when he was covered in mud (the other girls said the boys smelled awful).

They both could play chess, even if neither of them was really better than the other. They could end up in a stalemate, sometimes Flavia won, sometimes Marcello did, but no one really prevailed.

Mamma said it was normal. They always challenged each other, they knew each other like the palm of their own hands. It was likely the situation would have been different against other opponents.

Both Mamma and Papà could beat Marcello easily, but he was only ten, and in Mamma's opinion he and his sister were the brightest kids she had ever seen.

He was not stupid.

But even a stupid would have understood that their house had been attacked.

The main door was missing a piece. There were stains on the ground – someone had tried to wash them away, but there still were traces. Part of the furniture had visibly been knocked over. A window had been smashed.

"Papà, was it a thief?" Marcello asked.

"Thieves? How is that possible?" Flavia replied. "I mean, thieves go in big cities, we are the only family here who… wait, where's Jun?"

"They were soldiers, not thieves. And they were looking for her" Papà explained in a plain voice.

"Why? And where's she now?" Flavia asked again.

"On her way home. She'll travel for a long time, but she'll get there."

"Why were they looking for her?" Marcello added.

"Well, she was… _ragazzi_, it's a long story. And it starts… from here."

He unfolded a piece of paper, on which had been drawn the portrait of a boy whose face was partially covered by a hood.

"_Assassino_?" asked Marcello taking the poster from his father's hands "So, this bloke killed a man. What does he have to do with what happened here?"

He couldn't see the relation. Jun had been pursued by soldiers, but he had never, ever seen that boy before. He would have remembered him… apart from Zio Niccolò and Zia Marietta and their children and some hired hands, the villa did not have many visitors.

"Marcello, wait!" Flavia intervened. She took the sheet from his hands and raised it at his face's level. She seemed to have understood something Marcello didn't.

"I hope you're not thinking it's about me. That guy must be at least eighteen years old," Marcello snorted as Flavia's gaze went back and forth from him to the picture.

"_Seven_teen," Papà contradicted him in a bitter voice. "The gonfaloniere of Firenze, Uberto Alberti, condemned to gallows your grandfather and your two uncles. He would have killed me, too, if I had not spent the night… _at a friend's._"

"_Aspetta_. Wait… is that _you_?" Marcello asked snatching the poster from his sister's hands and comparing the two faces. "You mean… Vieri… his old man… Cesare… the rat…?"

"Duccio de Luca got nothing but _botte_ from me, you can be certain of it," Papà said with a grin. "And he _deserved_ it too. Anyway, the point is, Vieri de'Pazzi, his father Francesco, Cesare Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, the Doge, they all were part of a plan to take over the world, to take over the people's minds. My father figured it out, he tried to put a spoke in their wheel. They had to corrupt his friend to get rid of him. Their worst mistake: I entered the stage, and man after man, I turned their performance into a _fiasco._"

"What has this story got to do with Jun?" Flavia asked.

"Let's sit down. It's a long story, and I'm not the boy on that poster anymore," Papà told them pointing at three chairs, which he had surely put there in anticipation of the upcoming conversation.

Flavia was the first one to sit. Marcello, on the other hand, folded the poster and stuffed it under his clothes.

"You don't need to hide it, you know? You can keep it," Papà told him taking a seat. "So, we were saying, I spent a lot of time in Roma, to liberate the city from Borgia influence, and I trained a few youngsters there. There are twelve of them I could list on the spot anytime, even after all this time. I won't say what a _casino _it was trying to keep them in line. All of a sudden I had to save Beatrice's little brother, who had been captured by Borgia guards in retaliation, check that Piero and Candida did not stay in the tunnels to do the lovebirds, make sure Desideria would not leave _le penne_ behind trying to save a boy fallen into the Tiber, make the two buffoons, Ciro and Salvo, stay quiet for once… they were twelve rascals, but they also were almost family to me. Paolo and Emiliana even followed me to Constantinople some years later! I appreciated much more the hell they gave me, than the actual role of Mentore I achieved later."

Flavia started laughing, while Marcello just grinned.

"Sometimes I hear people talking about _Assassini_, in Fiesole and in Firenze too. But they don't say they're friends, they clown around, or they do the lovebirds, or they save drowning kids," he commented.

"People also say something else, Marcello," Papà said. "For example, _if you want to know a family, you must be a part of it_. By the way, to answer your question, Shao Jun is an Assassin. She was looking for me to find a way to liberate Cathay from its tyrant ruler."

"_Cathay_?" Marcello asked with his mouth agape. "But… it's across the whole world! Did she really travel this far?"

"When you want to do something, Marcello, when you _really need to_, there's nothing that can stop you, not even a long and perilous road. There will be always someone who wants to force his will on the others, and as long as there are men like that, Assassins will be there, too."

"You mean the bad guys could come back?"

"_L'erba cattiva non muore mai,_" Flavia intervened. "Ill weeds grow apace."

"I'm afraid so. Look at the world now, look at what happens in the Empire. Luther's followers, the Church, free will, bondage of the will. The Emperor declared war to the King of France, and so on and so forth."

"And the Assassins? Aren't they doing anything?" Flavia asked.

"They act in the shadows, as always. One of them, Giovanni, is leading an army, and he also recruited the two sons of a minstrel in Firenze. Giampiero and Enrico are still working in the Brotherhood of Rome, now your aunt can't do it any longer. Remember when Leo X died? It was no natural death. Enrico found the murderer and put him to the sword. We think there's someone else behind it, but I'm not leading the inquiry, so there's not too much I can tell you."

"_Enrico_ did this?" Marcello said, puzzled.

His two cousins, Zia Claudia's sons, Giampiero and Enrico Donati, were not the most usual visitors of the villa, but, even not knowing them well, Marcello would never have guessed they were Assassins.

Giampiero was over thirty years old, he was married, and had a four-year-old son.

Enrico, who had turned twenty-five the previous summer, was a strapping blond young man, always laughing, who tended to ruffle the hair of any kid too close to him and, on occasion, entertained the children by "magically" pulling florins from Marcello's ears.

He would have said _Papà _was an Ass…

_Wait a minute, Marcello, you didn't even think PAPÀ could have been one._

He nodded.

"So… you mean… we have to join the Brotherhood?" Flavia guessed. "Or just Marcello?"

"No, none of you."

"_Che COSA_?"

Suddenly, Marcello found himself on his feet.

Something told him Papà was about to raise his voice, so he broke off and stayed still and quiet.

When Papà raised his voice, he was _scary_.

"Papà, but you always say we live for the others," Flavia intervened.

"I don't want you to take unnecessary risks. It would be a life of pain. You will have to choose, when you will know enough to make a real choice," Papà resolved. "Surely not now."

"But Papà, your life wasn't all pain. You got us," Marcello said stepping forward.

He hoped Papà would understand what he was up to, as usual. He hoped he would understand he wanted to sit on his knees.

And he seemed to get it, because he gestured with his hand for him to sit on, and did the same with Flavia.

"I'm telling you this because _vi voglio bene,_" he told them as Marcello leaned his head on his father's shoulder. "You two are the best thing about me. I had no choice, when it came to the course of my own future. But I want _you_ to have that choice."

"I want to help," Marcello affirmed.

"_Molto bene_. Very well" Papà said with a grin. "Now, I suppose your mother and I would need a bit of help to tidy up."

"_Papà_! I'm ten!"

"That's the point, you're ten. You're not old enough to fix a door, and you want to go out and fight a war?"

Marcello felt his face growing warm. He had contradicted himself, as usual!

"Come on, go out and play. Your things are still in the shack."

Marcello quickly jumped down and rushed outside, while Flavia didn't join him until a few moments after he was out of the house.

"What took you so long?"

"Why on Earth is that you keep boasting about your so-called sixth sense, yet you can't spot what's under your nose?" Flavia scolded him in a low voice. "I think Papà is not alright."

"Papà is not alright?"

"Reason, Marcello. He didn't pick you up when we arrived. And now he has even blown the whistle!"

"How else would he have explained all that _casino_? And by the way, he didn't pick _you_ up, last year. And you were shorter than I am now."

"As you ran off, I saw him clutching his arm."

"He must have gotten hurt fighting the bad guys."

"Marcello, I'm afraid for him"

"For _Papà_? Come on Flavia, he's an…" He mouthed the word _As-sas-si-no_. "He has surely seen much worse."

"What would your old man be, ginger?"

"Much better than yours, _Bove,_" Marcello said turning. "At least my father can write his name. And _I can, too_."

Edoardo Bove was standing, his hands on his hips, in the small patch of garden not covered by plants in front of the villa. Anyone could have seen from miles he was wearing his older brothers' hand-me-down clothes, he was covered in dirt from hair to toes and was barefoot, but his broad shoulders, square jaw and calloused hands made people think he had seen more winters than the eleven he had actually gone through.

"Maybe your father was a thief? One of those cocksuckers who steal people's bread? Or maybe… he was a bastard?"

"How _dare_ you?" This time, it was Flavia who had not been able to hold herself back.

"You're just envious!" Marcello added to help her out. "Do you think I haven't seen your old man? He smells, he hits you and your sibs, he gets drunk at night, never a hug, never by your side, you only say this because that _cane_ you call father does not love you!"

Edoardo turned suddenly red.

Not only his face, like it would have been normal after such an insult. Everything. Face, hands, hair, even his faded clothes.

"Flavia… I see red," Marcello announced pressing a hand against his forehead.

Was he going blind?

_Damn, not now. I still have to learn a trade. Papà still has to teach me how to use a sword. Not now, not now, not…_

"_Bambini_? What's going on?"

Marcello blinked his eyes and found out he could see well again. Edoardo had run away.

"Mamma!" Flavia broke out running to where she had just came outside. "Marcello is not feeling well. He said he saw red."

"I'm fine now" Marcello replied "It was Edoardo. All red, from hair to toes. And all around, it was dark."

Mamma looked in his eyes, but Marcello could not say if she was angry or worried.

"I won't go blind, will I?"

"Not at all," Mamma said hugging him. "You said you saw him red, didn't you?"

"_Sì._"

"Is Edoardo the kid who always bothers you?"

"_Sì._"

"He carried it too far today," Flavia added. "If you had not come out, I think he would have attacked Marcello."

"If I had a sword like the one Papà had, he would not even dream such a thing!" Marcello grumbled.

"Rule number one: don't use a sword on someone who wouldn't use one on you," Papà intervened as they got back inside.

"Didn't you say we would not…?" Flavia asked.

"Provided that what I won't eat again what I said, what I said now is the difference between an Assassin and a killer. I did use the sword, Marcello, and not only that, but only on real threats. Someone threatening you with bare hands must not be attacked with a blade."

Marcello nodded, but stayed silent. He still wasn't certain of what Flavia had told him before, but _bloody hell_, something was really happening to Papà, and Marcello suspected he knew what had made him change his mind.

He had believed for ten years that his father was one of the most average people in the whole world, and he had invented stories about himself facing villains for his children's fun. Now he knew the truth, he would have liked seeing Papà armed to the teeth, with his hair still dark, kicking mad Vieri's and depraved Cesare's backsides.

"What are you thinking about, Marcello?"

Papà, the white-haired one who had a vineyard, stopped Marcello's thoughts putting a hand on his head.

"About when I saw red," Marcello lied making a grimace as he usually did when he was worried for something.

Papà crouched at his eyes' level, grunting for the effort.

"Marcello, look at me."

"Sì?"

"Try to look beyond what you see. Focus. Try to feel what's around you."

"You make it sound easy," Marcello snorted.

"It is easy. You did it before. Why shouldn't you now?"

"I didn't notice it before."

"Don't think about it. Don't worry. No one is hurrying you."

Marcello took a deep breath and tried to focus again. _Don't think about it. Don't worry._ It seemed easier said than done, but he told himself he had to do it.

Then again, what would show him he had done it?

He looked at the floor, then he raised his head again to tell Papà that he failed, that he couldn't do it.

What took him by surprise was that Papà's clothes looked blue, and _not just those_.

"Aha? _Visto_?" Papà asked him with a grin.

Marcello blinked again, and the blue aura around Papà disappeared.

"The ones you see like you saw me, remember, will be your friends. You can trust if you see blue," Papà explained standing up again. "The ones you see grey don't know you and don't care about you, and neither you should care about them. But if you see red, beware, it means someone is willing to hurt you, if they get the chance."

"What do I do if I see red?"

"You run. You hide. You call for me."

"What if… what if you can't hear me?"

"I will. _Promesso_. I'll always be there for you, understood? Always."

He was going to put his hands on Marcello's shoulders, but he suddenly grimaced out of pain, clutching his left arm with his right hand.

Almost instinctively, Marcello looked for Flavia's gaze. She, too, was looking at Papà, and she, too, was worried.

* * *

_Eleven and ten years old._

_What else could we have done?_

_Marcello was the first to stop worrying.__When__I__talk to him__now about those days, he'd say he should have understood something was happening._

_He'd say that he should have__spent__more time with our father, in those last days._

_But if I have to tell the truth, in those very days Papà took__matters in his own hands. He understood his time was running out,__whatever the pain in his arm had to do with it._

_He started spending more time with us. Telling his story. The same day he told us everything, he picked up an abandoned stick in the fields and crafted a wooden sword that he gave to Marcello._

_We were children. We did not understand. And maybe it was better that way._

_Two years later, I__saw__Marcello find out about the impending death of a person he was very fond of. For him it was much worse staying there, waiting for the__inevitable, than witnessing a bolt from the blue._

* * *

_November 29, 1524, Fiesole_

"Hey, Papà."

Flavia and Marcello had gone to Fiesole with Mamma, and they had come back, tired, and, in Marcello's case slightly dirty, but really happy, at sunset.

After a bath and the evening meal, the two kids had been sent to bed, and as always Papà had sung them one of his many songs.

He wasn't that great a singer, and lately his rhymes were interrupted by coughing, but still Marcello considered them the best songs ever, especially now he knew the stories were true.

"Was this Cesare so bad?" he asked as Papà stopped in the doorway.

"If I told you the things he did, you wouldn't be able to sleep," Papà told him sitting on his bed again. "I can only tell you that his date with gravity in Viana was quite pleasant for me and quite unpleasant for him."

Marcello grinned.

"You know, Papà, I've written a song, too."

"Oh, really? And when?"

"Today, in Fiesole."

"What are you talking about?" Flavia asked him. "We only had that encounter with Edoardo."

"That's what I mean. If Papà wrote the Cesare song after he tossed him through the air…"

"Okay, _now_ I have to start worrying. What did you do to the poor boy?"

"What _he_ did to _me_, you mean," Marcello replied. "Mamma had bought a small fruit pie for me and Flavia, so we were sitting on a low wall to share it as Mamma was giving a letter to the couriers. When she wasn't looking, Edoardo seized me by the shirt from behind, made me fall on my back, and got the whole pie."

"Why didn't you tell your mother?"

Marcello smirked and cleared his throat.

"_Edoardo, Edoardo, had not even time to coo, before he could eat my snack, he was drenched in pigeon's poo._"

Papà chuckled.

"He was amazing, really," Flavia commented. "I mean, as soon as he spotted Edoardo hiding somewhere, he found a pigeon coop above him, ran there, opened it, hit it with a stick and barked like a dog until all the pigeons had swarmed outside pooh-poohing themselves out of fear."

"I'd have done it in less time if you had helped me," Marcello replied.

"I _can't climb a wall_ with a dress."

"You two are pests," Papà said standing up with a grin. "Flavia, keep watching your brother and everything will be alright. As for you, Marcello, try not to make Edoardo become your Vieri. Stand together whenever you can, and whenever you have friends, hold them close. Remember, you are each other's strength. And Marcello, what about teaching your sister what I taught you?"

"_Aspetta_!" Marcello intervened as Papà was about to go away.

"What?"

Marcello pulled a face and clutched the blankets.

"But… the other Assassins… will we ever meet them?"

Papà just grinned.

"You already met two. You just were too small to remember," he said sitting on the bed again. "Flavia, you have to know one of my Apprentices was my best man in Venezia, and when you were born I called him here so he could be your godfather too. As for you, Marcello… when you were two, you used to get on the nerves of an eighteen-year-old Apprentice I had to give a sword to. You pestered him so much he had to pick you up."

Marcello blushed and hid his face behind the blanket.

"Did he get mad?" he mumbled under the blanket.

"Not at all. He liked you."

"But if the other Assassins like me too, then why can't I go with them?" Marcello lowered the blanket and snorted. "Much better than staying here and letting everyone pull my legs!"

"They wouldn't leave you alone for a moment, though," Papà resolved.

"Not even that Apprentice?" Marcello shyly asked.

"I don't think he's an Apprentice anymore. But I haven't seen him in eight years, we only exchanged letters. I know he has a villa in a nearby town, he has a wife and a five-year-old son, but at the moment he's in the Ducato di Milano… and I don't think he'll leave the battlefront so soon… unless something happened that was important enough for him to leave the army for a while…"

"Such a shame" Marcello said laying down his head on the pillow. "I would have liked to meet him again."

* * *

_That was the last night he sang to us._

_The very last night he was there with us._

_We were playing together, near the Duomo, in Firenze, trying to find the ghost of Lucrezia Borgia before she poisoned the apples our mother was going to buy._

_Stupid, isn't it? Two siblings with sticks against a nonexistent ghost._

_We didn't notice when our mother left the stands and__found__our father, still on the bench, not moving._

_We didn't notice until someone shouted in the crowd._

_Then Marcello dropped his stick, squinted and told me he didn't see Papà anymore._

_He looked around. He started __running around, calling for him. He almost ran away from the square._

_When I finally managed to stop him, he was sobbing he couldn't find him._

_He could not stay quiet. He could not stay still._

_I had to hug him to make him stop, and yet he kept sobbing and crying._

_I wanted to cry, too._

_It felt just __as if __the ground had opened under our feet._

_It felt just __as if __the world had ended._

_How can you tell something so painful in just words? There are no words to tell what's like, in no language, in no WAY._

_He just had gone away, nowhere to be found. __And he would never come back._

* * *

**_Mamma = Mum (informal)_**

**_Papà = Dad (informal)_**

**_Ragazzi = kids_**

**_I don't think there is needed translation for "Assassino". But in Italian, the word "Assassino" is also a false friend for "murderer". This explains Marcello's question._**

**_Botte = blows. With bare hands._**

**_Casino = mess_**

**_Le penne = the feathers. "Leave the feathers behind" is one of the many ways you can say "die" in Italian. And, for people like Ezio, is quite a proper way to say it._**

**_L'erba cattiva non muore mai = Ill weeds grow apace.__You know, farmers keep pulling weeds, yet they always grow back. That's the case, just like with the Templars._**

**_Che cosa? = What?_**

**_Vi voglio bene = "I love you" (used for affection, family love)_**

**_Molto bene = very well_**

**_Cane = dog_**

**_Bambini = children_**

**_Sì = yes_**

**_Visto?__= have you seen?_**

**_Promesso = promise_**

**_By the way, Cathay is how a part of China was known in Renaissance Europe._**


	3. A Heavy Legacy

**_Ciao readers!_**

**_As usual, I'm trying to update every Sunday, even if this means taking my laptop computer along now I'm in Bologna, Northern Italy, at my sister's flat. The chapter was complete, but I always try to finish another before uploading one, so when university starts there won't be long waits._**

**_Hey, if you find words stuck together... I really, really don't know why this happens. _**

* * *

_And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life._

_(J. K. Rowling)_

* * *

_After that November afternoon, our lives changed so quickly we __could __barely __keep track._

_We weren't used to going out alone – we were too young __to go into town __on our own – but since the first days of December we were forbidden to leave home __at all. That didn't upset us much. It had started getting cold, and in such periods we didn't like going out, if there wasn't snow to play with._

_What we really missed __from __our old lives were classes, as we had been homeschooled. Zia Claudia and Cousin Enrico arrived, and took the role of teachers, but it was not the same._

_Not even Christmas felt the same, even if that day was the most bearable for me and my brother, __mainly __because of Zia Claudia._

_A couple of days later arrived Beatrice and Paolo Simoni, two Roman Master Assassins, with news that, for safety reasons, it would __be __better if Marcello and I left the Repubblica di Firenze, and maybe also learned to defend ourselves._

_Until a few months before, __if not I, then __Marcello at least, would have been overjoyed at the proposal of entering the Brotherhood of Roma. At the time, on the other hand, going away for us would __be __like __definitely bidding __farewell to our father._

_Marcello was the first one to break into tears when our home became nothing more than a dot on the horizon, __but he was not the only one._

_The memory I'll always have of that cold December morning is a carriage bumping on the road, my forehead pressed against Beatrice's tunic, __her laying __a hand on my shoulder, and holding Marcello with the other. Then, __almost immediately later, Marcello and I are sitting in the carriage, side to side, and someone __put __a blanket on us._

_Whenever __they __were not letting __us sleep, Beatrice and Paolo told us stories about the Order, on the important Assassins like Brutus, Altair Ibn-la'Ahad, Marco Polo, and Dante Alighieri. Well, the last two didn't do so much as Assassin, but then again…_

_At a point, Marcello tried to teach me to "look in colors" as he called it. He started laughing when I told him his hair was no longer red._

* * *

Chapter 2

A Heavy Legacy

_Roma, January 1st, 1525_

"You two are just like my sister and I as kids, you know?" Paolo commented. "Our father was taken away by the Pope's guards when Beatrice was twelve and I was ten. Several years later, Beatrice saw those four _cojoni_again and was about to give them a good tanning."

"What then?" Marcello asked

"Then they would have given _me _a good tanning," Beatrice said in a bitter tone. "Luckily, a bystander begged to differ. Not even the time to say "_annate ar diavolo_" and the four of them were all on the ground."

"_Botte da orbi_!" Marcello commented with a smirk.

"_Già_, with a surprise," Paolo said flicking his wrist. A blade sprung out of his sleeve.

"We're getting down, guys," Enrico announced. "We'd attract too much attention, all of us on the carriage. We'll have to take different paths, and walk."

"_Ti pareva,_" Marcello snorted, going back to his former dark mood.

"Paolo, you take the kids down to _La Volpe Addormentata,_" Beatrice announced. "We'll talk to Giovanni and the others and we'll meet there to have lunch."

"You'll tell me about it there, won't you?" Paolo resolved taking Marcello's hand. "Kids, pretty please, stay close to me, don't get far, don't talk too much, try not to draw attention to us."

As they got off the carriage, Paolo led them through a gate, then in a maze of small streets and alleys, up ladders and down staircases.

"You're going to need new clothes, Flavia," Paolo commented looking around, as if he was attempting to bypass something. "You can't climb buildings dressed _like __that_, and we would have saved time, that way."

Flavia nodded. Now she understood why Beatrice wore trousers.

They had just entered the ancient district when someone shouted. First, Flavia thought it was just nonsense, but when the voice spoke out again, she realised it was really saying something.

"A' Pà! _A' Paolo_!"

The voice belonged to a young boy on a rooftop, with messy black hair, bright green eyes, and the face covered in dirt.

"Look who's here!" Paolo exclaimed with a grin as the kid let himself down and jumped on the ground. "_Ciao_, Alessio!"

"Who are these?"

It wasn't the first time Flavia saw beggars, not even street urchins. She had at least seen ten of them since she and Marcello had entered Rome.

But _this _street urchin was different.

He didn't look like if he was about to clutch someone's clothes to get some money or food. He didn't have the others' desperate look. In fact, he didn't look like an underfed kid at all. He just was dirty and ragged, and had a chipped tooth. His dark hair and tanned skin suggested southern origins.

And he _stared_. That was kind of disturbing, no matter how nice his green eyes were.

"What's the matter with you?" Marcello asked him with a scowl. "It's my sister, the girl you're staring at!"

"I look at anyone I want to, _testa de cazzo_!"

"What did you say about my head?" Marcello asked, holding up his fists.

"Boys, enough!" Paolo shouted, standing between them and holding the urchin back "Alessio, these are Flavia and Marcello. They're novices of the Guild. Flavia and Marcello, this is Alessio, not one of us, but a great helper."

"Why aren't you letting him in?" Flavia asked Paolo.

"We did let him in. He doesn't want to," Paolo replied as Marcello looked daggers at Alessio. "He… ran. From the Santo Spirito in Sassia orphanage."

"I'm _here_, Paolo, you know," Alessio protested.

"_Ma no, guarda,_" Marcello snorted and gave him a dirty look. He was a palm shorter than Alessio, but he looked so determined Paolo gave the two boys a worried look.

"Don't start fighting now, you two. Anyway, Alessio, did you meet Pasquino last night?"

Alessio nodded.

"We're headed for the tavern. You can come and eat, and I think Berta will let you have a bath if you want to."

Alessio nodded again.

"_Bah, bah, bah,_" Marcello mumbled. "Point is, I thought the matter was _us_."

"The matter in the Brotherhood is _no one gets left behind_. You'd better learn that soon," Paolo replied in a scolding tone.

"You must forgive him," Flavia explained as Alessio joined them. "We just left our home for the first time… and he behaved better before our father…"

"What did he do to you?" Alessio asked, worried.

"He _died_, you _idiota,_" Marcello pushing him aside. "He left us like yours did."

"Marcello, that was not the case."

"What was the case then? You trumpeting the whole thing?"

"I didn't recall you seeing red"

"I can believe it. _He _is red," Alessio intervened raising an eyebrow.

"At least I did know my father, you son of a skunk."

"Va bene, boy. What did I do?"

"You… you…"

"You're fucking upset, _chiaro_. You're not the first and you won't be the last. I went through it too, you know?"

"And don't call me 'red' or anything!" Marcello added.

"_Aaaaah_. Got it _now,_" Alessio said with a grin. "No offense meant, Marce'. People at the island usually have a laugh on their flaws."

"The island is the Headquarters," Paolo explained. "Wait and see, you won't find the welcome you had in Fiesole for sure. No… whatshisname, Edoardo?"

Marcello nodded.

"That's it, you can forget that ass," Paolo resolved "Here everyone will get along with you for sure."

Alessio went a few steps forward, turning his look in fits and starts like a bird of prey.

"The way is clear!" he told Paolo.

They had arrived in an open area, where the highest building was a lone tavern. Even if she had never seen it before, Flavia had heard about it. La Volpe Addormentata.

Despite the former owner's death, the place had kept its old name and purpose after passing into the hands of Giampiero Donati and his wife Berta.

"I suppose I'll have to enter the tub," Alessio snorted once inside

"Better a bath than lice," Paolo commented pushing him forward. "Flavia, Marcello, you better wash yourselves, too."

About an hour later, the three of them were in the main hall again; Alessio didn't even seem to have _ever_been in the streets, and Flavia was wearing her own trousers for the first time.

"You look good, you know?" was Alessio's first comment.

"You too," Flavia answered, grinning.

"Oh… these clothes?" Alessio asked, shrugging "As soon as I'm out again, I'll have mine back. If the other kids saw me like this, they'd steal them for sure. They're not even mine, anyway. They're the innkeeper's bro's. When he was my age."

"You mean Enrico?" Marcello asked.

"_In persona_. Do you know him?"

"It's obvious we know him, he's our cousin," Flavia said.

"Wait… your cousin? So… Donna Claudia is _tu' zzia_?"

"Sì"

"You mean your father was Donna Claudia's bro? The guy who hung up his blades to grow a vineyard?"

"_Ma no, guarda,_" Marcello intervened crossing his arms.

Alessio opened his mouth to say something, then he shut it, then turned his look from Marcello to Flavia.

Probably, he _would _have said something, but the door opened, revealing about half a dozen of people.

As it seemed, Alessio knew everyone, because as soon as the first passed near him, he raised his hand to greet, while Flavia could recognize only Zia Claudia, Enrico, Giampiero and Beatrice.

"Look who's here!" Giampiero exclaimed noticing them and hugging Marcello. "So, _ragazzi_, how was the journey?" he asked, hugging Flavia.

"They slept through most of it. It just seemed like they had holed up," Enrico commented. "By the way… _Giovanni_!" he called, gesturing to one of the men Flavia did not recognize.

Giovanni was a man slightly older than Enrico, dressed in black and maroon robes and a red cape, with short, dark, curly hair, short mustache, and the jaw covered in stubble. However, what struck Flavia were his muscular build, the broadsword he carried,… _and the Medici crest on his cape_.

That was not "just Giovanni". He was _Capitano _Giovanni de'Medici, better known as Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, the living legend on every Florentine's lips.

"What's up, Enrico?" Giovanni asked stepping forward.

"Fellow countrymen of yours, I suppose," Enrico explained as Alessio stepped backwards. "My two cousins, Flavia and Marcello Auditore. Even though I can recall you already knew Marcello."

Marcello gave Enrico a puzzled look and asked him, "What?", then he seemed to realize something and his face turned purple. So… it was Giovanni the Apprentice he had tackled as a toddler.

Enrico shrugged and mumbled, "He has grown shy. Don't ask me why."

"No reason to ask, anyone would become a shrinking violet in a town like Fiesole," Giovanni chuckled.

"Hey!" Flavia folded her arms and protested, then she noticed whom she had just addressed. It was strange, Capitano Giovanni dalle Bande Nere talking to them as peers… while in Firenze everyone called him a hero, a legend and so on.

"They've just arrived, Capitano." Alessio stepped forward and pulled a face. "By the way, what are you doing here? I thought you were in Lombardia."

"Oh, ciao to you too, Alessio," Giovanni addressed him. "I was. I'm here for the report. And there's one of Maestro Castoro da Siena's understudies, he was in a mission with me, but I think he got scabies or something like that, because he just can't stop scratching… I had to drop him here, he has an older brother somewhere in town who can take care of him."

"Scabies? Blah. Even I never got scabies!" Alessio stuck out his tongue.

Another man stepped forward, shook Flavia and Marcello's hands and introduced himself as Massimo Ricoveri, Master of Rome.

Then, a fair-haired man, looking in his late forties, dressed in a somewhat dirty red and grey robe, and with the wise looks of a seasoned fighter, approached them and sent Giovanni the glare that Marcello had received at least once a day from their teacher, a friar known as Simplicio, during the month he had spent in school.

The older Assassin didn't appear to like Giovanni a lot.

"I suppose you two don't remember me either," he said, grinning at Flavia and Marcello. "Well, Marcello can't, he wasn't born yet."

"You're Flavia's godfather," Marcello interrupted him with a grin.

"Bravo. Nice to meet you both. I'm Francesco Vecellio." The Master Assassin shook both children's hands. He, too, like Giovanni, looked as if he had just arrived from a journey.

"Did you know him?" Flavia asked Alessio as Francesco walked away.

"Met him once, when I was eight," Alessio shrugged. "But I thought he had moved to Venezia."

"Well, he does look like he has just arrived," Marcello commented. He looked more at ease, but his ears were still red.

"I like you, man!" Alessio grinned and patted him on the shoulder.

"You like me 'cause I'm Marcello Auditore?" Marcello raised an eyebrow. He had no time to complain further: another Assassin, this time a middle-aged woman, approached him and introduced herself as Rosa.

"You're your father's _bella copia_, little one," Rosa commented tousling Marcello's hair.

Alessio gave a very loud whistle that Flavia wouldn't have thought him able to do, not with half a front tooth missing.

It was just as if something in the air had broken.

Enrico started laughing.

Giampiero and Paolo did the same, quickly followed by Giovanni, Francesco and Beatrice.

Within a few moments the room was filled with laughter.

When the sound of laughter died, Flavia noticed that, as they were laughing, Marcello had burst out in tears: now he was sitting on Rosa's lap, and she was patting his back and telling him it was all right.

"It must have been too much for him," Enrico commented. "Stand back. Stand back. Rosa… I can handle him. I've seen him doing this before."

He took Marcello's hand and made him stand, drying his tears with a sleeve of his shirt. He was telling the truth: he had been there when Marcello had been expelled, and once had defended him from a group of older boys.

"Come on, a man does not weep," he told him, raising his chin with a finger. "What's wrong? You can tell me."

"It all looks… it all looks like a family," Marcello stuttered gesturing at the bystanders with both hands "And… Papà did all this…"

He didn't finish the sentence: he gave another sob and started weeping again.

"Want to have a walk, eaglet?" Giovanni proposed.

Marcello wiped his face on a sleeve and eyed Giovanni up and down, keeping his eyes squinched shut. Flavia didn't need to ask to understand her little brother was trying to find out if he could trust Giovanni.

"Good, he has the old ace in the hole" Rosa commented as Marcello nodded to Giovanni.

"_Allora andiamo_. Claudia, we'll be back _long _before dark. And if the little one trusts me, I don't know why you should not."

"I'm not leaving you alone with my nephew," Zia Claudia replied. "For what you did when you were a kid, I wouldn't be surprised if you forced him to make a Leap of Faith into the Tiber river without even making sure he knows how to swim."

"I _do know _how to swim," Marcello intervened

"_Madre_…," Giampiero protested. "You should trust him this time. I know he's not Bartolomeo, but…"

Zia Claudia turned her look from Giampiero, to Marcello, to Giovanni.

Her gaze stopped on Giovanni.

"If he comes back with a single scratch, no matter who you are, _I'll knock the stuffing out of you._"

* * *

_We would __learn __only __much __later that Giovanni was not so __well-liked __in the Roman Brotherhood because of his reckless attitude. In the ten years he had spent as an Apprentice, he had been exiled from Firenze __for a failed attempt to protect his teacher, exiled from Roma after killing two soldiers (actually, he had not killed them both, but the other two boys were never recognized by witnesses), and ordered a nursemaid to toss his son from a window. The baby boy was caught by his father and did not get hurt, but Alessio once or twice __has wondered whether he did or __did not hit his head despite having been caught in midair._

_Point is, Zia Claudia feared Marcello could get either hurt or in trouble, and she didn't want him to take a leaf out of Giovanni's book._

_But Giovanni was no longer an Apprentice._

* * *

"Your aunt is a _belva_, eaglet." Giovanni sighed.

"You say?" Marcello asked climbing on a low wall. "I have never seen her acting that way before."

"You've never been to Roma before, have you?"

Marcello nodded as he continued walking on the low wall while Giovanni walked alongside him on the ground.

"Well, if you want to know a family, you must be a part of it. She makes threats at least thirty times a day, and I don't even spend the whole year here. I used to be afraid of her, when I was seventeen. I just couldn't be around Enrico without her snapping at a point. I guess you'll be living with her, now, won't you?"

Marcello jumped over a gap in the wall and turned to the condottiero, who had stayed a bit behind.

"No, she decided for Flavia and I to live at Enrico's house. Just as long as Mamma isn't here. She's looking for people to take care of the villa, so she can buy a house here."

"Enrico? I wonder why."

"I don't see why you should. He's our favourite cousin" Marcello grinned and kicked a weed growing out of a crack. "Giampiero didn't visit so often. Enrico did. He's my only friend, you know."

"Don't you have any friends your age?"

"Nah. Apart from Flavia, I mean, but she's eleven."

A bitter smile appeared on Giovanni's face.

"You know, you remind me a lot of myself. My mother died when I was about your age," he said, leaning against the wall. "I don't even remember my father's face, I wasn't even one year old when he died. The only thing that he really gave me was his name, and believe me, your father's name is the worst burden you can carry. In your case, just the family name can make people turn when they hear it… it's as if people believe in some twisted way you'll be like him, maybe even better."

"Papà once told me a friend of his in Constantinople started calling him Marcello at a point to avoid him getting caught by a Templar," Marcello said, smiling. "So... in some way, I have Papà's fake name but it's true for me."

Giovanni chuckled.

"Better this way. You may have an important surname, but the name is your own," he commented as Marcello sat down. "Sometimes I would have liked to get a bit of revenge on my mother because she gave me my father's name. _Le volevo bene_, don't let me be misunderstood. All I am today, it's because of her."

"Like Papà for me," Marcello said tracing circles on the stones with his index finger. "Zia Claudia says I must be strong, but I can't do it. I want to see him again. I don't even remember his voice anymore."

"It's quite likely you will have his same voice in a few years," said Giovanni. "The tone seems the same, I met your father when I was a kid sometimes."

"Really?"

"Well, you still squeak wonderfully, but in two years you should speak like a man," Giovanni resolved standing up straight. "Talking about being a man, I promised your aunt you would not do any kind of leap, but do you feel like learning how to wield a sword?"

Marcello had been trying to slowly climb down the low wall, but the proposal made him flinch and he lost his grip. He would have fallen on the ground if Giovanni didn't catch him in midair.

"Easy, eaglet, if you so much as graze your knees, I'm dead."

Giovanni led Marcello to what seemed a storehouse on an island on the Tiber river. There was a sort of enclosed courtyard against one of the storehouse walls, and it seemed quite recently built.

In a corner, two barrels, and in both of them there was a certain number of swords.

"In the one on the left there are wooden swords. You start with those," Giovanni explained pointing at the barrel he was talking about. "Get two of them and pass me one. Let's start!"

* * *

_January 1, 1525, a house on Tiber Island_

"So, how was your walk?"

"I don't think it was wise leaving him alone with her," Marcello commented throwing himself on one of the three beds in the spare room they had been given. "As I was coming up, Zia had just begun rapping him on the knuckles. Just because my wrists had some scratches on them. My _wrists_, Flavia, just the wrists!" he repeated, holding up his right arm, which actually was covered in small scratches from the back of the hand to the middle of the forearm

"Well, Giovanni is a mercenary, he's sturdy and he also seems quite reckless. Maybe Zia thinks he got carried away with you."

"_She_got carried away," Marcello replied. "I mean, we should even stay with a master now. We're not _mocciosi_anymore. She can't…"

The door opened all of a sudden as Alessio entered the doorway, still wearing his 'good clothes' and with a bothered look on his face.

"Your aunt wants me to stay here tonight," he snorted with an annoyed voice. "She says it's going to snow and I could die of cold outside."

"It's freezing cold indeed out there," Marcello commented. "I mean, you can't sleep in the open."

"Who says I do?"

Flavia folded her arms and eyed him up and down.

"Well even if you don't sleep _in the open_, no parent, no person with common sense could have the heart to leave a child without a blanket, proper clothes and a fire in a night like this. And judging by how you gobble up at the table, she must also have thought you might like waking up and finding warm milk tomorrow."

"Gobble up? Me? I'm _growing _up."

"Well, we, too," Marcello kicked off his boots and took off his trousers.

"Can I stay with you two, by the way? Enrico said I can, but…"

"As you want," Marcello said shrugging and putting on a nightshirt. "By the way, why us?"

"You're the old Mentore's children," Alessio explained. "_Nun ve tocca nessuno._If I'm with you, I'm sitting pretty. Even Giovanni dalle Bande Nere behaves with you around."

"Why, how does he act when we're not around?" Marcello asked, puzzled.

"He put Enrico in deep shit some years ago. And I heard he has a small kid, about five years old, I think… name is Mino... When the kid was a baby, Giovanni told the nurse to drop him from a balcony," Alessio said sitting on the bed. Flavia stared at Marcello, outraged.

"You said he could be trusted!" she burst out. "Dropping a _baby_?"

"I saw him blue. He can certainly be trusted," Marcello replied.

"And I haven't finished," Alessio continued. "He caught the kid in midair. And when he found himself in his father's arms, the little one started laughing. Not a scratch."

"By the way," Marcello asked, "what's a leap of faith?"

Alessio suppressed a laugh.

"Sounds funny, you asking me," he said. "You, the Mentore's son. The Leap of Faith is what you need to know how to do when you finish the training. First they mark your ring finger with hot tongs… then they take you to the highest point of the Headquarters and _splash_, they make you dive in the river."

He took off his shoes, climbed on a table near the bed, and threw himself on the mattress, landing on his stomach.

"Like _this,_" he resolved, hauling himself on his arms.

"You seem to know a lot about that," commented Marcello.

"I've seen the Assassins doing it from the riverside. One by one." Alessio smirked. "Even your friend Giovanni, and your cousin Enrico, some years ago. Every night, I would run away from the friary just to see them."

"You like this life," Flavia told him. "You don't deny it. You like it. You could leave behind the hunger, the cold and the risk of losing the few things you have to other urchins… and you won't do it. Why?"

"I don't trust grown-ups. They can only give you rules… you want to eat? Then say your prayers and shit. No going out. No shouting… I mean what am I supposed to do? Better alone than in bad company."

"Didn't you trust your parents? Don't you remember anything of them?" Marcello asked.

Alessio looked down and shook his head in denial.

"Maybe. Pieces," he said glancing up again. "I just remember my father did not smile a lot. Except with me. My mother… nothing. Then, I only remember two boys' scared voices, then blood, too much blood… and then dark, and nothing. In all my other memories, there are friars who tell me what I must do and what I must not do, and send me to bed without dinner because I had forgotten the prayers and crap like that. In one of those nights, I was six, I climbed out of a window and ran to the river. I saw those people jumping off towers, showing no fear, and I realized that…"

"That was the life you wanted?" Flavia asked. "It's not too late. Before they sent us here I heard tomorrow the Master Assassins will choose their understudies. Give your name and step forward. _Insomma_, you're still on time, how old are you?"

"Eleven. Twelve next month, or at least so Enrico says."

"That's the point, you're as old as I am, and I'm more than certain someone will call my name…"

"Uhhh, _that's for sure!_" Alessio grinned. "Vecellio is going to choose you, sure as Hell."

"Did someone tell something about me?" Marcello asked.

"Rosa says you should not even be here. She said that if you weep like that…"

Marcello suddenly blushed.

"I'm not a crybaby!"

"And I'm a _pisciasotto_, so no master for me," Alessio resolved pulling the blankets over himself. "Night."

* * *

_We found no way to __win him over._

_The next morning, Enrico woke us up early and led us to the Headquarters. There were already other kids, they __kind of __gave us dirty looks, they thought for sure, "Who are these?" There was a certain rivalry in being taken by a teacher, the other kids kept showing off in one or another way, to be called by the best._

_I felt out of place. Those kids probably had known each other for months, maybe years, on the other hand, Marcello and I were the upstarts._

_But their attention was taken by something else when…_

* * *

_January 2, 1525, Tiber Island Headquarters_

"Let's try not to make this last too long, I have to leave for Pavia just today."

The tall kid Flavia was standing next to, Settimio, if she remembered correctly, goggled and whispered something to the boy near him, something Flavia quickly recognized as "_Ammazza, Giovanni de'Medici wants to get an apprentice!_"

The man who had just entered the hall really was Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, with his broadsword and his armour. The kids' murmurs became louder, until Massimo Ricoveri gestured to make them silent.

"If someone calls your name, you'll join your new mentor. The ones who will not be called today are begged to stay disciplined. You won't show yourselves worthy of another step in your training if you start whimpering like crybabies!"

There were ten Assassins ready to ask for an apprentice, and the children in the Hall were about twenty.

Half of them was bound to keep waiting.

The first to step forward was a veteran Massimo introduced as Salvatore Sallucci.

Flavia remembered that name: he was _Salvo_, one of the twelve youngsters Papà had trained.

"Bianca Richetto?" Salvatore called.

A twelve-year-old girl left the line and joined her new master. Some of the kids clapped.

After Piero Piacentini took Michele Campana, Nino Nastagio took Sandro Romano, and Zita Zanovelli called Checco Savona, Francesco Vecellio stepped forward.

"Flavia Auditore!"

Silence fell in the hall, followed by murmurs.

Then Settimio clapped, and he was imitated by his friends. Some shy cheers could be heard. Checco Savona whistled.

As Flavia joined her master, the others stared at Marcello, who suddenly blushed.

It just seemed everyone wanted to ask, without speaking, the question "_So you're an Auditore, too?_"

"Settimio Scaramuccia" had not time to think about it, as Ciro Cavallari called him in no time. Three more kids, Simona Gatti, Antonio Greco and Vito Piacentini, were called by as many Assassins. Then, Giovanni dalle Bande Nere moved forward.

"Oh, I think I know what's happening now," Bianca intervened. "Say bye-bye to your brother, Flavia… if he _is _your brother."

Flavia had not even the time to say Marcello _was _her brother, younger brother in the bargain, when Giovanni called him.

The applause for Marcello was the loudest, even if was mostly done by the kids who already had been chosen. The remaining nine or ten were clapping only out of respect, it could be easily seen on their disappointed faces.

Marcello made a coy smile and crossed the room, joining the small group of the 'happy few' near the masters.

"I didn't ask for it," he told Flavia, raising his hands.

Francesco frowned at Giovanni. Anything he wanted to tell him, Flavia could only guess, but she was pretty sure it had to do with the condottiero's bad name.

As it seemed, Massimo Ricoveri had been chosen to be the Master of Rome because he could foresee that kind of situation and knew how to deal with it, as before any of the two Assassins could say or do anything, he stood between them, looking daggers first at one and then at the other.

"We're already enough _nella merda_, thanks, we don't need to be at each other's throat!" he told the two masters. "Francesco, you should trust Giovanni, especially when Machiavelli says he could be the only one who can defend the Brotherhood from the imperial troops. As far as _you_'re concerned, Giovanni, if I hear you let be harmed a single hair from the boy's head, I don't care if that sword was given you by the Mentore or by God himself, I don't care if you're tied to the Pope's apron strings, I'll get you and kill you myself!"

Francesco clenched a fist and put the other hand on Flavia's shoulder, but Giovanni, who had even been the one who got scolded most heavily, did nothing but put an arm on Marcello's shoulders and promise Massimo he would keep him well away from any danger.

"Who is that? What has happened to the captain?" Flavia heard Michele whispering to Sandro.

"I heard you!" Giovanni smirked as the two kids stepped backwards in their mentors' direction on instinct. "Never heard about life debts, you two?"

Michele and Sandro stayed quiet anyway. As far as Flavia had understood, Giovanni dalle Bande Nere was a man who did not only command respect, but struck outright _terror_into some people.

"Shall I get my stuff?" Marcello asked, rubbing a foot on the floor.

"There's no need to, I made someone pack up for you," Giovanni answered. "Now, I'm warning you, this is not going to be a saunter at the Duomo. Are you sure you want to start now? I can always come back for you next year."

Marcello tried to frown, or at least to do a tough look.

It was as plain as day that Giovanni did not want to discourage him, _on the contrary_, he was trying to make him even more determined.

* * *

_At the time, I didn't know Giovanni's real purposes._

_I didn't know he had met my father more than once, nor that he was taking care of Marcello in his memory._

_What I knew, was that Marcello worshipped him. All in all, Giovanni could understand him. He would never replace our father, but Marcello considered him as… I don't know, an older brother, an uncle, someone who could help him._

_He said he would go with him._

_They left that very day._

* * *

**_Translation time!_**

**_Cojoni = assholes_**

**_Annate ar diavolo = go to Hell_**

**_Botte da orbi = blind man's blows. A sentence quite common in Tuscany to say "a good thrashing"_**

**_Già = yeah_**

**_Ti pareva = who would have thought it!_**

**_A' Pa'! A' Paolo! = Hey, Paolo!_**

**_Testa de cazzo = d!ckhead_**

**_Abbasta = shut up_**

**_Idiota = idiot_**

**_Senti, a' Marcè = Listen, Marcello_**

**_In persona = himself, that very person_**

**_Tu'zzia = your aunt_**

**_Ma no, guarda = You don't say_**

**_Bella copia = fair copy_**

**_Allora andiamo = let's go then_**

**_Madre = mother_**

**_Belva = ferocious animal_**

**_Le volevo bene = I loved her. Still "family love"_**

**_Mocciosi = brats_**

**_Nun ve tocca nessuno = No one would harm you_**

**_Insomma = all in all_**

**_Pisciasotto = poltroon_**

**_Ammazza = in Roman dialect, is one of the ways to say "bloody hell" or such_**

**_Nella merda = in deep sh…_**


End file.
